"Youths dream about their academic, professional and social development. Not all are likely to attain their goals. Only the motivated, determined achievers finally make the grade and shine in their chosen field. Zaal Meher-Homji is one such person,” K. R. Cama Oriental Institute trustee Capt Hormazdiar Desai wrote to Parsiana. Sixteen-year-old Meher-Homji’s debating and public speaking skills helped him win the UN Association of New Zealand speech contest. His subject was the United Nations at 60 – Achievements and Future. The speech won the rotating trophy for the school and for him a trip to Adelaide to participate in the week-long UN Youth Association Conference along with 129 other school students from Australia and New Zealand.
Meher-Homji: poet and public speaker
Meher-Homji’s emotional presentation and the global content of his speech impressed the judges, notes Desai. He referred to the plight of Rashid Peters , a 15-year-old boy forced to become a soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone, thus pinpointing the UN’s failure in preventing war and the ensuing human suffering. On the other hand he noted the success of the UN’s role in maintaining world health standards, prompt intervention during natural disasters, its work in improving the lot of organized and unorganized labor, preservation of heritage sites, etc.
A student of St Paul’s Collegiate, Zaal lives in Hamilton with his parents: leading psychiatrist Dr Jimmy Meher-Homji is the director of the mental health services for the Waikato region, Central North Island; obstetrician and gynecologist Dr Nilaofer Meher-Homji has a special interest in ultrasound and fetal medicine. The family had migrated when Zaal was five years old. And though he has been writing poems since his childhood and shown literary interests, Zaal wants to continue the family tradition of going into medicine like his parents and grandfather Dr Behram Meher-Homji who served Bombay’s Breach Candy Hospital for well over 50 years, writes Desai.